Thoughts on ICT for teachers, students and parents

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The future of education. Will they laugh at our ignorance?

What will ‘Education’ become within the lifetimes of the students we teach today?

Given the exponential speed of technological progress, there’s little doubt that learning will be radically different from what it is today.

I expect, before the end of their lives, today’s students will see machines with human-level intelligence. They will have the world’s information easily accessible 24/7/365. Technology will augment their bodies, cure their illnesses and enhance their perceptions. They will use machines that pass the ‘Turing test’, and their human-machine interactions will use speech, natural language and other forms of input we’ve not yet imagined. They will be able to communicate with anyone, regardless of their birth language because translation will be seamless and immediate. They will have vast personal networks with which they can communicate and collaborate in ways we’ve not dreamed of. Schools, if they exist, will be unrecognisable to us. There will be no teachers, only lead learners and learning facilitators. Some of these will be human. Education will be part of life, not something you do between the ages of 5 and 18.

Societal values will evolve rapidly. Things we barely even notice ourselves doing today will horrify the sensibilities of late 21st century society. Students leaving primary school will have a knowledge of the world that exceeds today’s university graduates. Citizens of the late 21st century will laugh at our ignorance!

Living to 100 will be commonplace. The world’s environment will finally, and only just in time, be receiving the care and remedial attention it so desperately needs. The world will be a better and more educated place.